something like a phenomena, baby
by andthenshesaid
Summary: She's studied genetics - her kids won't be blonde like she is/5 times Hana doubtd.


**something like a phenomena, baby **

/

"Come down!" Hillary Packer calls, when Hana and Alison Doveney have climbed nearly to the top of the tree.

Alison covers her eyes. "Don't make me look down," she says, holding onto Hana, shaking so hard they might fall. Hana just grins.

She'd tried to catch the disease, as a child. She wouldn't wash her hands, would rub dirt under her fingernails, would run around in circles to make herself dizzy and sick – anything. It wasn't that she wanted to have _love_ – because all the symptoms sounded nasty; sweaty palms and a racing heartbeat and death – but because she wanted to be _different_.

Her neighbors – the Hilton's and the Morrison's and the Deese's – they were all the same, except she supposed the Deese's had three kids. But all the rest of them, they were all so – _boring_. Sara Deese liked to play with her mother's tea set and Alice Morrison's mother made everyone wash their hands three times before they came into the house and Lillian Hilton never talked about anything other than the different ways she could style her hair and how her sister was married to someone in the government. It was all so _boring_.

She liked Alison Doveney best, she supposed. Alison flinched at the word _disease _and was scared of heights and her cousin, Hillary, always followed them around, but she and Hana would sneak downstairs and eavesdrop on her mother's DFA book club meetings and their dolls always had the best names, things like _Gatsby _and _Huckleberry_. Alison said she got them out of books, and Alison always had books; giant stacks of them in her room, but not like the kind at school – Alison's had worn, leathery covers and uneven letters, whereas the ones at school had shiny, plastic covers and other kid's names in wobbly pencil.

Alison shakes, harder even. Hana pokes her, gently, in the forehead. "C'mon," she says, "I bet we can get higher."

Alison peeks through her fingers. Hana resists the urge to laugh. "We're going to fall."

Hillary's calls grow fainter as Hana tests the branches, waiting for one to snap. She'd feel bad, maybe, but Hillary has the same shrill voice as one of Hana's aunts and always wears her hair in the same stupid plait and Hana just doesn't like her very much, so.

Alison follows her, with a tight grip on Hana's arm. The sun is shining and Hana has cuts on her arm from a bush she'd crawled through earlier and dirt caked under her nails and you can see over the tops of people's houses from here, you can see all the way past the fence and she almost feels dizzy.

They don't fall.

/

Hillary gets the flu in November, a week after Alison's birthday. She's the same age as Hana again. That month where Hana's older never feels right, and she's hated Octobers ever since, the kind of hate and depression and wrongness that sticks with you, no matter what – something about the dead leaves littering the ground and the cold wind and the black mask that the family across the street puts on the stone lion on their steps.

It's after school, and she and Alison are both sitting cross-legged on the floor. Alison's mother – who never wears dresses and likes to be called _Mrs. Tate-Doveney_, but Hana always forgets – had made them hot chocolate. Alison has a pile of books in her lap, but she's only got a purple one open. Hana wasn't really listening, but the other girl was explaining the newest one, animatedly waving her hands around to demonstrate the particular scene. It had been a birthday present from her mom. There had been that big party two days ago; everyone her mom and dad said was important had come and Hana had eaten too much of the cake.

"Do you love me?"

Hana blinks, startles. Alison is staring at her with wide eyes, the book still open on her lap. "What?"

"Do you love me?"

"I don't have the disease," Hana swears, because it's true, because extra dirt under her nails won't get her amor deliria nervosa anymore than playing out in the rain will get her hepatitis.

Alison rolls her eyes, fidgets around with her hands, tugs at her earrings – they'd gotten them pierced together, Hana remembers, and Hana had cried but Alison hadn't, had just gripped her hand tight enough to leave marks. "Well, yeah, but – I mean. You'd be, like, sad if I was gone and you like having me around and that's kind of like love, isn't it? It doesn't have to be the _disease_."

She spits out the last word and continues staring at Hana. Hana doesn't look her in the eyes, instead using her fingers to untangle a clump of her hair. Alison is leaning into her now, their faces close together, and Hana feels like she's taken a step too far, her stomach in her throat, her heart stopped, just for a moment.

"I have to go," Hana chokes out, stumbling towards the door, but really she's thinking about what Alison's words, wondering what's in the books that Alison is always reading because sometimes they're not like the kind they have at school, _they're not_.

Alison doesn't say anything back to her and the next day at school she sits next to Cara McNamara instead of Hana.

Hana wants to tell her the answer is _yes_, that she had a dream last night where everyone died and she cried and she was sad, so that yes, she does love her. But that's not right, because is still ten and slightly stupid and she'd dreamed last night that the world was made of marshmallows and she might want to be different but there was a girl last month who drowned herself because of amor deliria nervosa and Hana likes the way the sun kisses her skin on Saturday mornings and the sound of rain on rooftops, so she's not ready to die, not ready to much anything. Really, Hana is all about rebellious thoughts and actions but nothing of making an actual change, so she sits on the other side of Hillary and pretends that nothing is wrong.

/

Hana's sitting between Hillary and Clara when they announce the new student. She looks up from her half-written essay (that's being generous, really, Hana's never been one for writing), grateful for the excuse to stop working.

The new girl looks like a doll she has – the same tiny stature and bow-shaped mouth. Her hair is the same too, slightly wavy and frizzy, because that was the doll Hana had taken swimming once and then her hair had never brushed out quite right.

"This is Magdalena Tiddle," the teacher says, already moving away from the girl, "you can sit next to Alison – that seat, right there in the front."

Hana's heard rumors about the Tiddles, snatches of conversation between her parents and the things Alison and Clara whisper about at lunch. Something about tainted blood and suicides, the type of things they make warning commercials about. It's all terribly interesting and thrilling, Hana thinks, but Alison makes a sniffing noise when Magdalena sits next to her.

"It's – it's just Lena," she says, and the teacher nods absentmindedly, already facing towards the blackboard. Alison – who Hana isn't close to anymore, not at all, but sometimes if both their windows are open she'll catch a glimpse of dark hair and it'll make her feel sick inside, not like the disease, just _ill_, like she's done something horrible, but she _hasn't_ – scoots her chair even farther away. Lena flinches at the sharp sound and after, Alison makes a great show of washing her hands at the sink in the back of the classroom.

Hana sits with Lena at lunch that day and she can feel Alison and Clara and Hillary watching her, but Lena – Lena is _interesting. _Sometimes she'll say something funny and look so surprised when Hana laughs, she'll do this wide-eyed blinking thing, like an owl. She eats slowly and she taps her fingers on the table, like she's waiting for something, and sometimes, Hana will see her, out of the corner of her eyes – she looks so sad that it's enough to break anyone's heart.

/

They're running on a Tuesday, Hana breathless and laughing and Lena smiling and winning. Hana had tripped, earlier, and scraped her knee, but she can barely feel the pain. It's too late in the day for it to be light out, but the road still has a sun-baked feel to it.

"Break!" She calls, when they get out past the last of the warehouses. Hana flops down on the cement to stare at the early-evening stars, barely wincing. Lena joins her, more delicately, but then they're both sprawled out on the ground.

Hana's pulse is racing. She's been running fast. It's a hot day.

Angelica Marsten hides bottles of alcohol in the trash cans between Hana's house and hers. She'd made a false bottom, Angelica had told her, smoothing down her shiny, dark hair, out of glue and tin she found in a warehouse. Hana had helped her pack it down with ripped up t-shirts that morning. There was a party in lot 212 tonight, because Angelica's friend's friend knew the security guard. Angelica had winked when she said _knew_. Hana thought about the boy she'd met at the last party, the one with the bright eyes.

Hana doesn't know his name. She should learn it, maybe. Except he'd smelled like sugar and he had sweat stains under his arm and, yeah, it didn't really matter. Angelica had slung an arm over her shoulder when it was over, smiled drunk and happy, "he's _cute_," but when Hana went to bed that night, she didn't dream, only thought about the homework she hadn't done and whether she would have time to copy it from Lena before first period.

Hana puts a finger to her wrist. Ten minutes after her run and her pulse is still racing.

/

Hana's seen Ben Hargrove before. He lived two blocks over, with large, dark eyes and a small mouth and beautiful, dark hair. She's studied genetics – her kids won't be blonde like she is.

She won't have little blonde babies. And it's not that that makes her want to cry. She doesn't even like kids. It's more because – after the surgery, she doesn't think she'll care anymore.

She won't care about Lena and her beautiful eyes and she won't care about running and she won't care about laughing after she loses and she won't care about music thrumming through her veins anymore. Hana's not big on tragedy, but she thinks that might be one.

Staring at the sheet of paper in her hands – listing 5 names but she already knows which one she'll pick, because she doesn't know who _Alan Maloney _or _David Singleton _are and no one could compare to the mayor's son anyway, or at least that's what her mom will tell her – Hana shakes and her palms sweat and her heart pounds in her chest and it could be love but it probably isn't.

/

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